A Heart's Arduous Return
by Sanoiro
Summary: Chloe Decker celebrates her 36th year on this Earth. She will probably never know but love is the small gestures even when coming from afar. Set between 2x13 and 2x14.
1. Chapter 1

This is an idea I had for a long while and nothing special really. Just a small thing I wanted to post today as a small gift.

And yes, I know AGN is pending for an update. I'm almost there... Almost...

* * *

 **A Heart's Arduous Return**

It was the small things. It is always the small things after all. It began with a small bar of milk chocolate on the kitchen counter. A single rose on her car's windshield. An uncommon quiet day at work. Her vacant eyes were staring at the stairs for a solid four hours while she had been sitting on her desk. There was no case. No reason to get out and forget what grounded her in this place more than her actual job. A hope that perhaps he would make an appearance if only for a day.

The fragrance of spring was slowly creeping its way to the always sunny Los Angeles but the change did not seem to affect her as it always did. The sun was shining dull, there was no real warmth to be felt under its gracious rays.

"Everything okay?" Dan asked her and she clicked her pen twice. There were no papers to be filled, no real reason for her pen to hover over the desk. Swallowing thickly she plastered her best smile and nodded. She could not fool him. Or perhaps she could.

"Time is but a number on a calendar, Chloe!" He teased her in good humour but he had no idea how wrong he was. The marked calendar, next to her monitor was counting exactly 55 days. 55 days which seemed to have lasted more than her 36 years on this planet.

"Thank you for the cool ranch puffs." She had enjoyed these little devils for the past half an hour while counting down the minutes for picking up Trixie and getting back home.

"No idea what you are talking about." Dan gave her a small encouraging smile before turning to leave

"Oh and I got Trixie from school, she is waiting in the Lab with Ella. Happy Birthday!" He told her hurriedly and left before he could see her eyes sparkling dangerously.

"For how long?" She shouted at him but he never gave an answer.

"An hour mommy…" Trixie chirped from behind her chair.

"Let's go home baby." She sighed and before taking her daughter's hand in hers, she looked at the stairs again. There would be no Italian leather shoes with red soles walking down these stairs this afternoon. How foolish was she really?

Taking the snack bag out of her bag, she gave it to Trixie only for her to pass the offer. From the dark smudges in her grinning gums, she had consumed something far more interesting before making herself known.

The ride home was uneventful and the house quiet when they returned. Maze was probably out there hunting down her latest booty. Lucifer's absence had thrown several people off their loop. Chloe rarely saw Maze without a glass of hard liquor or blood stains on the clothes inside her laundry basket. Everyone dealt with his absence in the best way possible but he didn't seem to be set on returning.

"Baby I'll have a shower and then start our dinner, okay?"

"Okay, Mom!" Trixie called from the couch already engrossed on the television's screen.

The water run hot over her hand. Satisfied she removed her clothes ready to jump in before realising she had forgotten to get a fresh towel. Groaning she closed the tap and made her way to her room. The towel was waiting for her carefully folded on her bed. She would have sworn that she had not taken it out of the closet.

Trixie's hushed voice was never hushed it was practically inaudible. On the couch, her daughter was hunched over the phone chattering quietly. She would have certainly missed Trixie's unsupervised phone escapades if she had been in the shower.

"More cake?" She asked and Chloe had half a mind to take the phone, where surely Dan was bribing their daughter with more cake. What was that man thinking?

"Lucifer… When are you coming back?" The little girl asked as brokenly as her mother felt over his departure.

He had called. His voice was just a few feet away from Chloe's trembling naked body. Now that would have been a great irony for him, she thought while choking something between a laugh and a sob.

"Yes, silly I did everything you told me! Yes, I'll be a good spawn for her birthday!" Trixie laughed.

The chocolate bar, the rose even the blasted puffs or even the towel had come her way under his instructions. She should have seen that coming only she had been lost for so very long.

"Love you too…" She heard her daughter and Chloe shook her head. Of course, Lucifer had loved her daughter. That man was capable of love, she knew at least that.

She would have taken the phone off her child's hands and demanded from him to get his arse back. She would have threatened to cut his average balls before slapping him silly. She would… But she would not. What was the point of forcing him back? He cared. He had to find his way back alone otherwise what was the _bloody_ point? All she hoped was that whatever kind of relationship they had 55 days ago, would still be enough for him to find his way back to her.

"To the Silver city… , Hell…, stars…. and all the way back again." She heard Trixie murmur while repeating to his rolling tones, through the speaker. After a short tentative bye, she hung up the phone with a heavy sigh.

And all the way back again…

Back again…

 _'Please be back again.'_

 **The End**

* * *

1) Cool Ranch Puffs. There are at least two episodes in which Lucifer declares that he loves them and even steals them from the L.A police station in 2x06.

2) I just thought that Lucifer could not stay away from her for long. even indirectly he would have done something. Just a thought there really...


	2. Chapter 2

Again nothing special. Just what I wanted to write at the beginning of the previous chapter. Just a childishly written continuation now. Nothing more.

I was set on posting this before the Easter holidays were over so here we are...

* * *

 **The Stars Are Way Too Close**

His fork cut through the chocolate cake with ease. The girl at the counter was still looking at him funny. Lust had given way to confusion when a gorgeous man in his mid-thirties purchased a cake and took the nearest seat before asking for a fork. Despite his wrinkled clothes and the strong smell of liquor he emitted even from a far distance, he was still more than appealing. At least he was until he dove his fork in the All Nighter Cake and took a moaning bite. It was then when Lucifer Morningstar became once again, downright sinful.

It had taken him a special order to get this cake and Hell be damned if he didn't enjoy the whole thing. Lucifer had found himself being sustained mostly on expensive whisky and chocolate cakes since his arrival in Las Vegas, three weeks ago. In his search for what was supposed to never have found its way to his hands again, he had found great comfort in the warmth of alcohol and the sweet aftertaste of chocolate.

The chocolate filling swirled on his tongue with the flavours of Kahlua, mascarpone coffee cream, toffee pieces and fluffy ganache being combined in a terrific devouring experience. Leaving his fork down he reached for his phone. He was always tempted to call her when peace was crippling in his very being through chocolate but he always refrained to his desires. A first for him really, yet the probability, one out of three, her picking the phone was never working in his favour.

Looking at his watch he knew she would be most probably at home by now. Maze would be out hunting something and it was… Tuesday. Douche was always scheduled on picking up the little spawn from school on Tuesdays. Meaning there was an open window of half an hour before the Detective barged into the house to prepare lunch for the ungrateful little gamin.

His thumb no longer hovered over the button. A call was heard beating at the same time with his swallow breathing. It was not long before the line on the other side was picked up and he could hear her again after almost a month.

"Hello, Beatrice…"

* * *

In the weeks that followed Lucifer and the spawn established a very comforting, for both sides, routine. Between coming home and lunch he would call for updates and she would happily oblige when Lucifer would deliver through a bakery proxy, her favourite cake at school three times per week. Lucifer would instruct the LittleCook in Los Angeles to recreate every memorable cake he ever had in Las Vegas to share it with her. This had led to a unique bonding between the Devil and his Detective's child, over their mutual appreciation for fine confectionery.

""Lucifer can I have a big cake next Monday?" She had asked him on a Wednesday.

"I think you get enough cake as it is. Gluttony is a sin. A delightful one for sure but-"

"I'm sharing my cake and you know it!" She chided him making him feel almost sheepish. _Father_ , he had missed her mother's stern reprimands.

"And for a noble cause, although perhaps a second sandwich could also suffice that cause?" Lucifer suggested for the child's suspiciously near starved friend. Bloody humans, bloody parents in this particular case.

The silence on the line made him wonder how he had missed this before.

"Beatrice… Are you also sharing your lunch with her?" He asked her softly swearing he could sense the phone bobbing up and down in an unspoken yes.

"Yes… But-" The child began and he shushed her soothingly.

"Let me take care of it from now on okay?" He would make sure to supply the child's friend with an extra lunch daily and would double his meddler's cake portions as well.

"Okay, but can I have a whole cake on Monday?" Beatrice asked him again, pressing the subject, even more, to get what she wanted.

"It depends on why of course my little Devil."

"It's Mom's birthday…" She whispered in hopes that this would not drive him away again. The child had more perception than he had originally given her credit for.

"Oh…" He said breathless, cursing on missing out on this event as well as a hundred more since he had left the city.

"It's okay if you say no. Mom says that the best gifts come from the heart so I think I can find something else." She told him quickly.

"I-… I think I can manage that but would you mind making me a favour?" He asked her while a plan was already forming in his head.

"Anything! I love you to the stars and back!" She squealed a bit too loud for his ears comfort.

"Child the stars are way too close… Is that how little esteem you hold for me?" Lucifer grunted in disappointment. Then again if that was the amount of adoration the child had for him perhaps he was safe from any more hugs.

"No! How far should I go and back?" She asked him, worry colouring her voice.

"The Silver city for once, then Hell. Stars can come last I suppose." He told her sceptically while taking another bite from his just purchased cupcake.

"So… To the Silver city, Hell, stars and…"

"All the way back little one." Lucifer's voice croaked at the realisation on how true these words were ringing in his head and not just the child's.

He had to finish what he started here. He had to protect the child's mother and... _her_ of course. He had to stay in Las Vegas for now even if phone calls would be the only thing he would get for now for his Decker withdrawal.

"I love you." She whispered timidly, beating her mother to the very words he was craving to hear for quite some time now.

"I believe... I like you just as much Beatrice." He found himself telling her awestruck on how easily the words came out.

"So what's the favour?" She asked him with a newfound eagerness.

"I want you to mutilate Mrs Jonson's garden for one of her prized roses."

"Check!"

"Purchase that little candy bar your mother always wolfs down when stressed."

"Check!"

"On Monday you will be at the precinct, I'll arrange a pick up by your father with the school." The Headmistress had been _quite_ accommodating some months ago.

"Can you do that?" She asked in awe making Lucifer puff his chest in pride.

"Little darling I'm the Devil… and you jot down purchasing a bag of cool ranch puffs from the vending machine at the precinct." That was it. He could do only that much from afar but perhaps his network in the shady part of the city could ensure a peaceful day for the Detective as well.

"That's it? Why these three things?" The child asked not really convinced by his choices.

"She will be stressed so she will need something to munch and your mother needs to remember that things should come up roses in the long run." Lucifer reminded her throwing away the cupcake's paper in a bin.

"And the cake?" She demanded to know making him laugh on how set she was on her goal.

"Will be delivered shortly after lunch as long as you say it came from your savings. Deal?" He questioned and heard a huff of exasperation from the little girl.

She was just so much like her mother. Perhaps that was the reason why he had come to care for her so much. The Decker females were certainly Devil-whisperers. All three of them. His Detective was more of a Devil's trap though.

"Deal!" She squealed again having Lucifer talk the speaker away from his ear grimacing.

Hugging up the phone he thanked his lucky little creations on how at least the little one was not falling apart. He was feeling himself crumbling with every bite of cake he was taking nowadays. With every drink that reached his now tightening stomach. He could only hope the Detective was not as far gone as he was.

 **The End**

* * *

Sometimes I wonder how Lucifer will react when he will realise that he cares for the child almost as much as he does for her mother. Perhaps in the episode Deceptive Little Parasite (2x15).

Now I'll take a small break from writing fanfic. See you again in May! :)


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